


Revenge is Best Served…

by LadyMyfanwy



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 07:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21115349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyMyfanwy/pseuds/LadyMyfanwy
Summary: This is the sequel to 'Owen’s Really Done It This Time!' For some time has moved on since Owen's evil deed, but not for others.





	Revenge is Best Served…

Revenge is Best Served… 

“Owen Harper, you bloody bollocking prat!” 

Winking broadly at Gwen, Owen grabbed his coat and bag and dashed through the cog door; as it closed behind him he definitely heard, “You’re a dead man!” 

Cackling with evil glee, the medic took the stairs two at a time, shouting back, “You have to catch me first!”

***** 

“You know, mate, I have to say you’ve been a good sport,” Owen paused by Ianto’s desk. “You and Jack both.”

“What?” Ianto glanced up. “What are you talking about?”

“You know,” Owen shuffled his feet, “the whole salt in the coffee thing a few months ago. Remember?”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten all about that,” Ianto shrugged. Truth was, Jack’s horrified look as he’d spat his morning coffee across his desk was indelibly printed on his mind. He remembered in excruciating detail the moment he’d raised the mug to his own lips but rather than take a sip, he’d carefully stuck just the tip of his tongue into the liquid and within seconds he’d understood Jack’s strong reaction: salt. 

Jack’s mug was filled with the equivalent of black sea water.

The memory was as fresh as if it had happened that very morning.

“Really?” Owen laughed weakly. “I’ve been half expecting you to do something in return, you know, get some kind of revenge or something!” he admitted sheepishly. “You or Jack, but that’s good! We’re all adults here, you know!” The relief in his voice was palpable. “No, it’s good… let bygones be bygones, I say!”

“Yup…” Ianto popped the ‘P’ as he turned his attention back to the report he was finalising. In the reflection on his computer monitor he could see Owen walking away, heading for his autopsy bay, a visible spring in his step and for a moment, a very brief moment, Ianto almost felt sorry for the acerbic little medic. Almost…

‘Nobody messes with my coffee!!’ 

***** 

Ianto continued to bide his time, knowing that sooner or later the perfect opportunity would arise and Doctor Owen Harper would come swaggering into work boasting yet again about the woman he’d pulled the night before. It was inevitable, like a Weevil digging through the trash behind the bakery. Sometimes Ianto thought the man enjoyed the bragging more than the actual pulling itself. 

Sure enough, roughly five weeks later, Owen came strutting in the Hub like the proverbial cock of the walk, annoying everyone as usual with his overly broad hints and semi-lewd comments.

“I wish you could have seen this bird I pulled last night! A real dream come true, I’m telling you! She just honed right in on me, like there wasn’t anyone else in the bar.” Owen slurped his coffee and looked around the table; the team were gathered in the boardroom for their morning briefing, enjoying Ianto’s special Wednesday blend and a plate of pastries curtesy of Tosh. “She was blonde from top to bottom, if you know what I mean!” and he winked lewdly. “I know… I checked! Several times!”

“You are such a pig, Owen!” Gwen exclaimed. “That’s disgusting!”

“You haven’t heard the best part yet!” Owen teased mercilessly. “She was a screamer!”

Toshiko closed her eyes in despair, Gwen snorted her coffee through her nose, Jack burst into laughter and Ianto rolled his eyes.

‘Gotcha!’ the Welshman silently cheered, knowing it was finally time to put his plan into motion. He nudged Jack under the table and gave a tiny nod even as his fingers sent a swift message to Toshiko.

“Okay, people!” Jack sipped his coffee. “Enough fun for the moment. Let’s get down to business. Gwen? Anything to offer today?”

“My mother-in-law hates me, says I’m a terrible wife who can’t keep a decent house and that my husband is slowly starving to death because I can’t boil a pot of water without burning it! She’s threatening to cook his meals herself and have them sent over by courier service!”

The four other members of Team Torchwood just stared at her in stunned silence for several moments until finally Jack spoke again.

“I see… ummm… well, give Rhys our love and next time we all go out to eat feel free to bring him along. We’ll feed him up free of charge.” His eyes twinkled as he looked at Gwen.

“I… you…” Gwen wasn’t quite sure if he was being serious. “Thank you. I know he’d enjoy that… spending time with you all, not the free food, I mean!”

“Good. Now, Owen? Anything medically or autopsily?” Jack turned to Ianto. “Is that a word? Autopsily?”

“I don’t believe so, sir, but I will check for you later.”

The medic shuffled some papers around. “I finished the autopsy on that alien plant thingie that we got in Splott on Monday. Died cos it couldn’t process the nitrogen in the fertiliser the farmer used in his fields but luckily it hadn’t had a chance to release its spores so, yeah, potential disaster avoided.”

“Would the spores even germinate here and wouldn’t any plant they might grow into die as well?” Gwen frowned.

“You’d think so, but there’s always the chance that they have the ability to adapt quickly to new environments,” Owen tapped his pen on the table. “Maybe a part of their genetic profile, like an intergalactic weed that self-pollinates and conceals itself in the indigenous flora. Sneaky way to invade.” He shrugged. “I’ve planted a couple of the spores up in the greenhouse, see what they do. The rest of it has gone up in flames in the incinerator.”

Jack nodded. “As long as you keep a close eye on them and stop them in their tracks if it looks like they’re gonna be, come sentient or take over the world or something else weird.” His tone was very stern and his eyes were hard.

The last time Owen had potted an alien plant to see what it would do it had taken an alien-tech-enhanced weed whacker, two triple-headed Antherican battle axes, eight gallons of crabgrass killed mixed with equal portions of sour milk and bovine urine, and a well-Retconned groundskeeper from Castell Caerdydd to eradicate the alien ivy-like creature that had invaded nearly every area of the Hub. Even Myfanwy had been effected when it tried to wrap itself around her belly.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” the medic muttered for the hundredth time. “That was some surprise, though, yeah?”

Ianto rolled his eyes as he slid his foot sideways and gently touched Tosh’s shoe. It was her turn.

Jack turned his attention to his brilliant Japanese tech wizard. “Tosh? Should we be expecting any Rift activity?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been able to fine-tune the predictor, making it tighter and more accurate.” She pulled out a computer printout and consulted it. “I don’t expect anything until next Sunday morning, early, I’d say between three and six AM. I can narrow it down even more as it gets closer, pin it down to a ten or fifteen minute window.” Tosh looked up. “I do know that it’ll be something small, easy to collect.” 

“That would be great. Ianto and I will take care of it, so unless something strange happens we won’t bother any of you.”

Gwen huffed. “I hope not! Rhys is going to a friend’s stag-do and I’m at the hen party that  
Saturday night, so we won’t be getting home to well after midnight.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Don’t call Gwen if the world starts ending cos she’ll be rat-faced drunk.” Jack waved a hand at Ianto. “Make sure that’s in your minutes, Yan.”

“Yes, sir…” Ianto scribbled on his notepad. “Done.”

Tosh frowned at her computer and rose, excusing herself from the table, and popped downstairs. She returned a few moments later with a file folder, smiling apologetically as she sat back down.

“Okay!” Jack clapped his hands. “Let’s get back to work…”

“There is one other thing, Jack,” Toshiko interrupted softly. 

“Be my guest,” Jack beamed at her.

“I just got a report forwarded to us from UNIT that six men were admitted to various London hospitals and A&Es over the past week, all complaining of neon-coloured urine.” She pulled several sheets of paper stapled together from the folder and handed them to Ianto who in turn gave them to Jack, who scanned the information.

Owen perked up. “Really?” He drained his coffee and waved his mug at Ianto, a silent demand for a refill which the Welshman supplied but not without a glare at the medic, who merely smirked as he took a noisy slurp. “Haven’t heard of that before.”

“Says here each man stated they were out for the evening, met a woman in a bar, spent the night with her, and in the morning their pee was glow-in-the-dark aquamarine blue. Onset was between eight and twelve hours. Fortunately there was a UNIT doctor on duty that first day, doing some community service or something…” Jack smirked. “Probably got on some general’s bad side and was being punished for…”

Ianto cleared his throat and glanced at the papers the immortal held.

“Well, anyway, when the second guy showed up this doctor put out the alert so he was contacted each time after and he was able to convince the poor blue pee-ers that they’d been the victim of some student prank. Told them that college kids must have put something from the chem lab in their drinks.”

“Quick thinking,” Owen acknowledged.

“Agreed.” Jack nodded. “At least someone has a good head on their shoulders over there.”

“For the official report, the UNIT doc has diagnosed the problem as an alien STI, he prescribed a quick jab of wide-spectrum antibiotics and then had the victims flush their systems with four gallons of water over a twenty-four hour period, more if their urine wasn’t clear by then.”

Owen nodded with approval. “That sounds like a good course of treatment.”

“Is there a description of this woman?” Ianto asked.

Jack consulted the printout. “Everyone says she was blonde, beautiful, but heights range between five-foot-six and five-eleven, eye colour varies…” He frowned as he read silently for a moment. 

“What is it, Jack?” Gwen was intrigued. 

“When the doctor interviewed them, each man says precisely the same thing… ‘She was the woman of my dreams’.”

“Huh?” Owen jerked upright in his chair, sloshing coffee onto the table and when he ignored the small mess, Gwen tsked and used her napkin to clean it up.

Jack pointed to a passage. “The other characteristics vary a bit, and none of these guys knows the other, different parts of town, different jobs, etc., but the quotes are the all exactly the same, whoever she was, she was the woman of their dreams.”

“What?!” Owen made grabby motions at the paperwork.

“Here, read it yourself.” Jack tossed the papers to Owen who caught them in mid-air and immediately started pouring over them, his finger tracing the sentences.

“Oh, God!” The medic muttered under his breath; his heart was pounding and he could feel a bead of sweat start to trickle down his back. “Oh, no…” He gulped the rest of his coffee, ignoring the fact that there was slight tremor to his hand.

“Something wrong, Owen?” Toshiko asked sweetly.

“No!” He quickly shoved the papers in his pocket and jumped to his feet. “Can’t sit around here all day… work to do!” and with that he hurried from the room, nearly running down the stairs and into his autopsy bay.

Gwen stared after him in bewilderment. “What’s up with him?”

Jack scratched his head. “Just being Owen, I guess…” he finally answered.

A short time later, the team were back at their desks, where Gwen was pouring over recipes on the BBC Food website, hoping to find something simple enough that she could make it for Sunday dinner yet complicated-looking enough to impress her hyper-critical mother-in-law. Toshiko had several programs running, displayed on various monitors, while the one closest to her showed silent live-cam footage of the autopsy bay. Up in Jack’s office he and Ianto were glued to Jack’s computer which also had the live CCTV coverage of the autopsy bay but with the added benefit of sound. 

Owen paced the length of his workspace, back and forth, back and forth, checking his watch over and over again while drinking four small bottles of water. He was clearly muttering frantically to himself, although what he was saying wasn’t quite audible. Finally, after nearly an hour, he made a mad dash to the men’s room only to emerge a few minutes later grinning from ear to ear and giving a triumphant punch in the air.

“Dodged a bullet there, old girl!” he crowed as he danced past Tosh’s desk. He missed the knowing smirk that she aimed at his back.

Upstairs, Jack looked worried. “Are you sure you gave him enough? Shouldn’t he be glowing in the dark by now?”

“Tosh wrote the report to say between eight and twelve hours… Owen would have counted backwards, and he understands that everyone’s metabolism is different.” Ianto reassured his lover. “It wouldn’t be as fun if it happened the first time he urinated. He thinks he’s gotten off scot-free and this way the suspense builds.”

“You are a devious young Welshman, aren’t you?” Jack smiled approvingly as he drew Ianto into his arms. “How long before he has to go again?”

Ianto consulted his pocket watch. “Given how much coffee he’s had… four large mugs-full in all, plus all that water, I’d say two to three hours.”

Jack pouted. “That’s a long time to wait.”

“Yep.” Ianto popped his ‘P’. “And I cannot spend it up here. I have work to do down in the Archives and besides, Gwen keeps looking up here. I can just see the wheels turning in her brain, wondering and imagining what we’re up to.”

Jack’s eyebrows waggled suggestively. “Wanna make her dirty thoughts come true?”

“How about this,” Ianto kissed Jack, “let’s put a pin in that for the moment,” he slipped his fingers between the buttons of Jack’s shirt, his long fingers gently stroking the skin beneath, “and tonight, I’ll make waiting well worth your while, yeah?”

“How well?”

Ianto twined his fingers through Jack’s hair, pulling him down for a soul-searing kiss, leaving the immortal gasping for breath and control when he was finally released. “Very.”

“I… erm…” Jack flopped back in his chair, coherent thought momentarily disabled as blood rushed from his brain to his nether regions. “Yeah… okay…”

Leaving Jack with a final kiss to his head, Ianto gathered up their coffee mugs and several files and left the office. After a quick stop in the kitchen to wash the mugs, Ianto gathered files from his team mates’ desks and spent a satisfying hour and fifty minutes checking items off his To-Do list. When it was time to return to the main Hub, he sent Jack and Tosh a quick text and grabbed an artefact he’d found weeks before and had put aside waiting for the right day. He knew to be a harmless child’s toy from the Switsin Galaxy but it had a few screen and lots of coloured buttons. With a shite-eating grin, he headed upstairs.

“Owen?” His first stop was the autopsy bay. “Found this downstairs, wondered if it might be some sort of medical something… it appears to have a scanning function?” 

“Oh yeah?” Owen snatched it from Ianto’s hand. “Lemme see!” 

Knowing Owen had already forgotten he was there the moment his greedy little hands touched the artefact, Ianto took the dirty coffee mug and biscuit plate from the counter and went up to the main Hub floor.

“May I interest anyone in a coffee?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“YES!” was bellowed from the autopsy bay.

“Me!” Gwen eagerly abandoned trying to follow a recipe for Chicken Marsala.

“Yes, please, Ianto.” Tosh struggled to keep the grin from her face, knowing that the plan was about to reach fruition.

With a quick wink in Tosh’s direction, Ianto went into the kitchen, where he prepared a round of coffees just the way the team liked them.

As he had done countless times before, Gwen’s mocha-flavoured coffee was soon delivered, Tosh’s cinnamon-vanilla crème was within easy reach, and Owen’s Baily’s Irish-cream was on his desk. With only two mugs still on the tray, Ianto mounted the stairs to Jack’s office, slipped inside and closed the door behind him. It was time for him and Jack to reap the rewards of patiently waiting several months for their revenge.

Jack had pulled the spare chair around next to his and as Ianto set their coffees down on the desk, Jack angled the computer monitor so they both had a good view of the autopsy bay. 

“Shouldn’t be long now,” Ianto sipped his coffee, savouring the delicate nuances of Viennese Cinnamon, letting the flavour slide across his tongue. “Mmmm… this is quite tasty.”

“Oh! Look, Yan!” Jack pointed at the screen. “Look! Owen’s doing the pee-pee dance!” and the immortal chortled with glee.

Down in the autopsy bay, Owen had the alien child’s toy in one hand while the other cupped his crotch, the perfect imitation of a little boy who desperately needed to urinate but was equally unwilling to stop playing long enough to go to the bathroom. He was shifting from foot to foot and squeezing his legs together until finally the call of nature became too strong to resist. Dropping the artefact on the counter he dashed up the stairs, ran across the Hub floor and disappeared down the passage to the bathrooms.

Quickly, Jack and Ianto jumped up and ran to the office door, stepping out onto the landing, grinning down at Toshiko.

“Wait for it…” Ianto murmured, “wait…”

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!” came from the bathroom echoing upwards to Myfanwy’s aerie. “It’s bluuuuuuuuuuuuueeeeeee!!!!!!”

“And there it is, Cariad. Revenge is best served blue. I hope it suits.” 

Jack pulled his Welshman in close and kissed his temple. “It’s perfect.”

end


End file.
